1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to reality capture data, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for reconstructing a three-dimensional (3D) mesh from reality capture data.
2. Description of the Related Art
It may be desirable to accurately construct/reconstruct a 3D mesh based on data from a variety of sources (e.g., laser scans, Kinect scans, photos, etc.). Prior art systems provide algorithms to produce a mesh out of single sources of data (e.g., a point cloud) (e.g. products available from Geomagic™ Inc.). However, today, the only approach to mesh reconstruction from hybrid data (i.e., from multiple sources) would be to reconstruct point clouds for each modality independently (e.g. photogrammetry and scan), then run a surfacing algorithm on the resulting consolidated point cloud. In such an approach, each modality proceeds independently from the others, so there is no guarantee that one source modality will accurately integrate with another source modality (e.g., that a photogrammetry reconstruction process will produce a point cloud that is close to the scan data). Further, the resulting point clouds may be different enough that combining the point clouds into a single surface could be a challenge, or even impossible. In embodiments of the invention, all modalities co-operate in the same minimization process, and “help” each other in guiding the process towards the right solution.